


-less

by angelica_barnes



Category: One Direction (Band)
Genre: Falling In Love, M/M, Mental Health Issues, Mental Instability, Self-Esteem Issues, Unhealthy Relationships
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-29
Updated: 2018-04-29
Packaged: 2019-04-29 16:23:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 622
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14476551
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/angelica_barnes/pseuds/angelica_barnes
Summary: zayn doesn't know how to think. all he knows is he loves liam and he wants to die.he doesn't know what he's supposed to choose.maybe he shouldn't.





	-less

**Author's Note:**

> based off :
> 
> Dark Side - Kelly Clarkson

Zayn pulls Liam in by the collar. They’re both exhausted, eyes drooping closed, and Zayn can hear his blood pumping in his ears. There’s a haze, of something unnamed around them, and he’s a breath away from Liam’s lips and Liam’s a gasp away from his.

“I’m in love with you,” Zayn whispers, and Liam rasps that he knows. They stay uncomfortably close, drowning in the heat of each other’s bodies.

“Same,” Liam finally murmurs, and Zayn understands.

They don’t kiss.

 

 

-

 

Louis’ eyes are icy blue when they meet Zayn’s, cold and hard and unforgiving. Zayn shivers. He’s at the mercy of this storm, this thunder and lightning and pouring rain, and everyone knows it.

His walls aren’t up, his defenses remain worthless. Louis hisses hateful words, he curses, and Zayn hangs his head.

Zayn gasps when Louis breathes smoke into his lungs; he coughs. “Air,” he chokes, and Louis spits on the pavement that Zayn lies on.

Motionless. Lifeless. Loveless.

“Black,” Louis says harshly, boot grinding into Zayn’s heel, and the raven-haired boy cries out softly in pain.

Pain is something Zayn deals with. Death is something Zayn lives for.

 

 

-

 

Zayn lets Harry’s gentle hands roam over his body. They come in contact with bruises, they brush cuts, they press burns. Zayn feels imperfect, with his scarred hand held in Harry’s smooth one.

“I will love you,” Harry mumbles in his ear, and Zayn cranes his neck and closes his eyes. The grass tickles his face and arms and legs, and he can feel Harry’s hands braiding flowers into his hair. “I will love you when your demons show.”

The night is quiet after that. The moon smiles kindly at them, and blows wind into the calm sea of air, and clouds shift into closed eyes.

Zayn says nothing in return, and Harry kisses his temple.

 

 

-

 

Niall doesn’t touch him. Zayn doesn’t move, they stay a foot away from each other but their fingers absentmindedly tangle in the middle, caught.

Somehow he can’t escape when he tries, and Niall asks him softly, “How do you live?”

Zayn is silent. Niall says no more, he purses his lips and they look up at the sky.

Black. Starless. Ever so empty.

“I don’t,” is Zayn’s final, quiet answer, and Niall’s hold on him becomes a little tighter.

 

 

-

 

Taylor sings lullabies to him when he comes close to sleep. It’s always dreamless, always memories.

“When life will fail,” Taylor starts softly. “Love will prevail. Another dawn, another dusk, another day of gaining rust…”

She hums, the melody drifting far above them into the wisps of steam that raise from his skin wherever she touches him. She smiles when his eyes open, deep and curious.

“Longer,” he can’t help but murmur.

She listens.

“A fallen soldier, live in vain, they break you, bend you, kiss your pains. Your hurt becomes their pleasure, they whip you for good measure, and the lyrics to your love can never change.”

Taylor’s voice is gentle, her words all too truthful.

Zayn listens.

 

 

-

 

Zayn falls deeper. Down, down, into blackness and dark and never-ending. Suddenly Liam is beside him, and Zayn squeezes his eyes shut in fear.

He reaches out for something, anything, in the empty.

Something to love. Something to need. Something to hold on to.

Strong arms wrap around him, and the fabric of a shirt is suddenly beneath him, soft as Harry’s touch and Taylor’s voice and Niall’s care. He whimpers, and clutches the whipping wind in his fingers.

It slips through anyway, between the cracks, so he grapples for Liam’s shirt, just in time.

Right before he would’ve crumbled.

One piece stays intact, faintly glued to the others, and he clings to what he can.

Liam.


End file.
